We Are Northshore - NHS v. St Paul '88

April 5, 2009

Tues, Feb 9, 1988

I still recall the bus ride back across town from Salmen High School. We had just lost 60-47 to Salmen in a battle for second place in the district. The loss moved us to third place in district standings at (4-3) behind St Paul and Salmen.When the team bus arrived back at Northshore the bus lights came on, but as we prepared to exit the bus Coach Chimento jumped up from his seat and turned around to address the team. He told us that he had just figured out a plan how we could beat Salmen and that we would play Salmen again. His words were met by blank stares from most of the team. The team had already played Salmen twice during the season, we only had three games remaining to play this season and Salmen was not on our remaining schedule. As Coach began to convey his plan to the team, he became excited and his voice became raised as he said, “we’re going to win our final three games, Salmen will lose their last game to St. Paul, we will be tied again with Salmen for second place and we will play them again”. I’m pretty sure most of the team was in disbelief and just thought Coach was losing it. We all knew that our last game of the season was against St. Paul. St Paul was undefeated in district and had already beaten us 76-65 earlier in the season at their gym. Tired and disappointed by our loss less than an hour ago to Salmen, Coach’s vision seemed to be unattainable and was dismissed as just wishful thinking. I mean whatever happened to take it one game at a time, don’t look ahead to your next opponent? Coach was overlooking our final three opponents and placed all his focus on a tie-breaking game against Salmen that didn’t even exist on the district’s schedule.

Practice the following day was more of the same, Coach kept talking about playing Salmen again. That Friday night NHS defeated Amite and the following Tuesday we beat Pearl River. NHS now had a (6-3) record and was still in third place behind St Paul (8-0) and Salmen (6-2).

Friday, Feb 19, 1988

Over the past 10 days since our loss to Salmen the ‘87-‘88 NHS Boys Basketball team had begun to see Coach’s vision as it was becoming our reality. A win over St. Paul tonight in the final game of the regular season and a loss by Salmen in their final game would place both teams in a tie for second place and force a tie-breaking game just how Coach had envisioned.

The stage was now set:

Northshore vs St Paul
Time: 7:00 PM
Place: Panther Gym